When there is no place to lie down, walk
by analine
Summary: It was as if she were stitching up a wound, holding the world together with cotton and silk and bone-white buttons. Troels Hartmann/Rie Skovgaard; original Danish series


**Title:** When there is no place to lie down, walk  
**Fandom:** Forbrydelsen/The Killing (original Danish series)  
**Characters/Pairing:** Troels Hartmann/Rie Skovgaard  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** none; pre-series  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count:** ~2,330  
**Beta: **Sariagray

**Summary: **It was as if she were stitching up a wound, holding the world together with cotton and silk and bone-white buttons.

**Notes**: This is a prequel to the series, a bit of a get-together for Troels and Rie. So if you haven't seen the show, and for some reason feel like reading this anyway, it's totally safe - no spoilers! ^_~ All you really need to know is that Troels is a politician, a candidate for mayor in Copenhagen who lost his wife two years ago, and Rie is his public relations person, his "spindoctor".

* * *

_The poor in cities learn: when there is no place to lie down, walk._

_At night, the streets are minefields. Only sirens drown out the cries.__  
If you're being followed, hang on to yourself and run—no—walk._

-Tracy K. Smith, _The Speed of Belief_

* * *

The colors of the city bled into Troels Hartmann's office through tiny gaps in the blinds. They cast uneven patterns onto the featureless carpet and dark, wood paneled walls, flickers of light that seemed to seep in through the cracks at every opportunity.

This was one of the advantages of working at City Hall, at least as far as Troels saw it – he was never far from the pulse of the city (lit up and alive, always).

Speaking of alive, his heart felt a little wild, beating unevenly in his chest as he watched Rie slip on her coat and gather her things—briefcase, canvas shopping bag filled with campaign materials, handbag.

She was switching off the lights around the office as she went, one by one.

It had been a long day. The same could be said for the week, the month - the campaign in general, really. It was as it should be, though, with the election so close.

They'd spent the last several hours in meetings with his staff, their heads bent together over the latest figures that had been released—on housing, on unemployment, pay raises for salaried teachers, and union negotiations. They never knew what Bremer was going to focus on next, so they had to be ready for anything. The debates would be starting soon, and every single one of these numbers would become second nature to his campaign. They'd all be able to recite them in their sleep.

Troels was done with politics for tonight.

Rie switched off the last light. Just as she moved for the door, he placed his hand on her shoulder.  
He was fairly certain that she would say yes. It wasn't as if he hadn't noticed how she'd been watching him these past few weeks, measured and professional, but with just a hint of curiosity, of something more.

When she turned to him, her profile caught the light from the window behind his desk– fluorescent blues and greens and yellows flickered over the bridge of her nose and across her cheek. Her eyes flashed, curious, but he had a feeling she knew what was coming all the same.

He focused on the curve of her lips, just for a moment. Then he reached around her for the door handle.  
"Have dinner with me," he said, his face close to hers – just close enough so that he could hold her gaze in the shadows.

It was here, after all, in this space between two people that the truth of most situations became clear. Troels believed this wholeheartedly, and with good reason, as he saw it – it had served him well with supporters and opponents alike throughout much of his career.

He turned the knob and pushed forward on the door. She was going to say yes. He could see it in her eyes, that spark of interest.

If she had reservations, because of what she knew of his past or because of their professional relationship, he couldn't see it. Troels took this as a positive sign, though honestly, he'd have asked all the same.

"Unless you already have plans?"

He raised his eyebrows, and then smiled, a slight, playful upturn of his lips.

He already knew what her answer would be, but his heart continued to hammer away in his chest, right up through the moment she accepted.

* * *

"Come back to my place," he whispered from the back of a taxi after their second date, his lips close to her neck. There was a hint of perfume just behind her ear, slightly flowery – jasmine, maybe. Her hair brushed against his cheek, tickled his nose.

Her skin was soft and warm, and that was exactly how he felt, too - like he could lose himself in the folds of her coat if he wasn't careful.

Outside it was misty, the remnants of an earlier storm, and the humidity was fogging up the windows of the taxi. They'd shared a bottle of wine at dinner and his limbs felt loose now, pressed up against the lines of her body, as if some barrier had been erased between them. Where there had always been several protective inches, where her bag had always sat on the middle of the seat between them, there was nothing—just her skirt hiking up her thigh as the driver jostled them along.

The city blurred past outside the taxi, and even though he knew the roads between City Hall and his home like the back of his hand, and could walk them in his sleep if he had to, Troels honestly had no idea where they were at the moment. They could have been anywhere.

He stared for a moment at the dark hair framing her face—she had turned towards him and was watching silently, her eyes dancing over his face. He had no idea what she was thinking. When he couldn't wait any longer, he threaded his fingers through her hair and pressed his lips to hers. They parted easily, and in his chest he felt a surge, something like joy. He hardly recognized it like this - unaccompanied and pure, with no guilt, no hesitation. It flooded through his veins like a drug.

When they finally pulled away she was smiling. Her eyes sparkled, bright grey against the darkness. Quick streaks and flashes of city panned in and out of Troels' frame of vision outside the window. He moved towards her again, but she was already leaning forward, asking the taxi driver to let her out here, and the car was already slowing. Then she looked at him and laughed.

"We have an early start tomorrow," she reminded him. She was still smiling when she pressed her lips to his quickly. "Thanks for dinner," she said, squeezing his hand. The look in her eyes was affectionate, fond in a way he hadn't seen before.

The thought crossed his mind that if he asked again, now, she might say yes, but he stayed silent as she stepped out of the taxi. He held his hand up to the window and it was still there when she turned around, just as the taxi started to pull away. She was smiling, and he smiled, too, embarrassed, and lowered his hand.

* * *

Rie had known everything from the beginning, of course. His marriage, Anna's death, all of it. At their first campaign meeting, they'd sat down outside his office while Morten had gone around unpacking boxes of campaign materials. Fliers and posters with Troels' face plastered over them sat in piles and lay propped up against the walls, lining every surface.

They'd barely started talking, had hardly made it past introductions, and Rie had leveled her eyes at him, and asked carefully, professionally, if there was anything she should know, anything the press might get hold of, regarding his prior marriage. It would be a tough election, after all; there couldn't be any surprises.

Troels understood, of course. He believed in honesty, believed that it was important above most everything – in politics, and in his personal life. In this, he saw himself as uncompromising.

And so he'd told her what he thought she needed to hear, what she needed to know. She'd spoken to Morten already though, of course she had. He realized his mistake quickly. And so instead, he listened. Right down to the rumors about a certain night last March at a local bar that had been far too close in proximity to city hall, a night he wasn't proud of in the least.

After that, he answered her questions, resigned to it, the words lodging tight in his chest. They sounded hollow when he spoke, but he spoke them anyway as Rie nodded, scribbled notes in her tiny black notebook, nodded again.

Yes, he told her, it had been hard, after his wife had passed away; yes, there had been women, on more than one occasion, and too much to drink, but it was in the past. Yes, he was focused on the campaign. No, there wasn't anything to worry about anymore.

"I'm sorry for having to ask," she said after they'd finished. She was, apparently, satisfied with his answers.

Then she smiled at him – genuinely apologetic and a little disarming; bright and sparkling around the edges - it lit up her face. She wanted him to like her.

Still, it wouldn't be easy to hide anything from her, Troels thought. He might have been relieved.  
She was different. She was uncompromising, too.

Troels liked her immediately.

* * *

"Come back to my place tonight," he asked, though it was more a rhetorical question than anything else, this time. It was their third date, just over a month into the campaign, and tomorrow was Saturday. His calendar was free until the early evening.

She didn't answer immediately, but when he gave the driver his address, she didn't protest, and he caught sight of a smile on her lips as she stared out the window. He took her hand, pressing his lips to the back of it, and then to her fingers, until she laughed. He wanted her to like him, wanted to keep her laughing. He wasn't thinking of Anna.

* * *

"Are you sure?" Rie asked him, just before they'd gotten out of the taxi. "I'll only ask once, and I'll take you at your word – no hard feelings either way," she said, carefully, that calculating look in her eyes, the one she always used on him when she wanted to know if he was listening, if they were on the same page before a meeting.

"Yes," he said, not actually surprised by the question, or his answer. He'd been asking himself the same thing all night. "I'm sure," he said.

"Okay, good," she said, and the sound of her voice lodged deep inside Troels' chest, raising the hair on his arms to attention before taking up residence somewhere between his ribs, and his heart.

With Rie, it wasn't like it had been with the others, looking for pieces of Anna in their touches, in their angles and curves.

When he was with Rie, he found himself imagining the future, not as some nondescript blank page, but as a realistic and tangible thing, something he could move towards, something different. A different life than the one he'd been leading these past two years. She brought that out in him, maybe. With Rie, Troels felt like he could put his best face forward.

For the first time in a long time, he thought maybe he was finally moving forward, moving on.

* * *

His legs were jumpy, jittery in the taxi and as they walked up the stairs to the door; he felt like he could have run several laps around the block with energy to spare.

When he fumbled with his key in the lock—it was cold, and he'd forgotten his gloves—Rie batted his hand away. She slid the key in effortlessly, stepping around him and into the entryway. She removed her shoes, but before he could be bothered to do the same, he found himself pressing her up against the back of the door, kissing her with such force he thought he could feel the hinges straining against the door frame.

At first she laughed, and made a half-hearted attempt to take off her coat, but after a second she was up on her toes, her coat half open. She kept their lips pressed together as her fingers closed around his tie and loosened it, and then he could feel her fingers against his neck, reaching up to help him out of his overcoat, his jacket.

He laughed a little when she tossed their coats to the floor unceremoniously, and she just smiled, her eyes dark as she reached for his collar and pulled him towards her.

* * *

She stayed until morning. Over coffee, she let him know that she would head into the office first, to look over the recent poll numbers. She'd already called for a taxi; he could join her later. Better to keep a low profile for the time being.

He agreed, and then leaned over from the other side of the bed as she pulled her skirt up over her hips, and pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder.

"This," he said as she turned to smile at him. "This is nice," he told her, meaning her in his bed on a Saturday morning, meaning all of it, this thing (the newness of it, this fresh exhilaration) that had been building between them.

"Yes," she agreed, before adding, with a smile, "so far."

He leaned back against the headboard, captivated by her voice, her movements, her weight on the edge of the bed.

He'd thought of Anna only once last night; his brain's rejection of it (her hair spread across the pillow, the curve of her breast against the palm of his hand) had been quick. Quicker. It had felt almost satisfying, like closing the door to a pair of unwelcome, prying eyes.

And the only thing he was really thinking now was that he wanted more of all of this. His heart was full of it, but he still wanted more.

"So far?" he asked her, raising his eyebrows, smiling. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She winked at him as she did up her blouse. Her fingers moved slowly, deliberately, and Troels followed them with interest, enjoying the dexterity of her movements. It was as if she were stitching up a wound, holding the world together with cotton and silk and bone-white buttons.

"It means that so far, it's been amazing."

**End**


End file.
